Council tracks down motorists to refund £1 million penalty fines

Thousands of motorists are being tracked down by a London council - so it can repay them £1 million in wrongly issued fines.

About 18,500 drivers were penalised after a Richmond council-­operated CCTV "spy" car caught them committing parking and moving traffic offences.

However, motorist Nigel Wise had his £100 fine thrown out on a technicality by a parking appeal tribunal, after he proved that Richmond used the "wrong" kind of camera on its cars. It meant thousands of other motorists' fines were invalid too.

Richmond withdrew its patrol cars and apologised but refused to return the money automatically. It said individual motorists would have to apply for refunds, even though critics pointed out that unless every single motorist heard about the ruling, they would not know to apply.

This week, the council performed a U-turn when members voted to track down all affected motorists to offer them refunds, which will range from about £60 to £100.

Today, council leader Lord True admitted the tickets were issued "when the authority should have known better".

"We will write to the registered owner of every vehicle against which a ticket was issued by our camera cars inviting them to apply for a refund," said Lord True. "The council took money from people when we were not entitled to. That was wrong and the wrong should be put right."

Letters will be sent to the registered owners of roughly 18,500 vehicles which received fixed penalty notices between April 2009 and April this year. It is estimated that up to £10 million of tickets are issued city-wide by the CCTV vehicles every year. There are 43 cars equipped with CCTV in at least 24 boroughs.

Richmond's spy cars will remain off the roads until the council has carried out a major review.